Am I a fool for sticking with my cheating wife?

Hello Pastor,

My wife and I have been married for six years. When I met her, she was two months pregnant with another man’s child. I didn’t mind that at all because I loved her deeply. She got a job before I did but she supported me financially very well. Even when her colleagues flirted with her or asked her out, we laughed about it together and I advised her how to handle it.

It’s unfortunate that several years later, I found out that she was having an affair with a friend of mine. When I confronted her, she apologised and told me she just found herself in the mix. I never asked the man but I immediately became cold towards him.

I recently took her to medical school and I’m fully in charge of paying her school fees. Additionally, I take care of our three children while she is in school. The last born is only eight months old.

The cheating pattern repeated itself when I found flirtatious, sexually suggestive texts in her phone from her male classmate. In one of the texts, they talked about how she hugged him. When I confronted her she became very emotional and accused me of not trusting her. She said that the only reason she hugged him was because I did not hug her. She added that she needed to be hugged as a friend. I was really hurt by her words.

Every time we disagree, she tells me to go and marry an angel like me as she is tired of not being trusted. I love her, what should I do?

Hi,

Thank you for writing in and sharing your dilemma. Your problem is multi-faceted. First, with six years down in a come-we-stay marriage like yours, and blessed with three children, one would expect that your marriage will have settled down and moved on towards being fruitful and a blessing to both of you.

I empathise with you concerning the lack of progress in this direction. However, the foundation one lays is key to the performance of any relationship. I sense a lack of commitment and firmness in dealing with issues.

Cracks are guaranteed to appear in a relationship due to the lack of clear objectives. If we look back at your relationship, one would question the many inconsistencies. I am not really sure whether you did enough homework before you engaged her in a relationship. Values are key in any relationship. Faithfulness is a virtue that helps grow a healthy relationship.

Your relationship lacks such important values. You also confess that your wife flirted with her colleagues and is now flirting with her classmates yet shows no indication of changing her ways which is perplexing. The fact that she passionately defends such actions could point to a deeper problem than you may think. Remember that, she has a child that is not yours and still goes out with men unapologetically.

Could she be taking your forgiveness for granted? The fact that she blames you for not being there is an issue you may need to explore and see whether there is truth there. In your desire to solve the dilemma, if her deep-seated needs have not been addressed, the relationship could sink deeper into another cycle of vulnerability. Taking time to discover the real need driving her behaviour is a great place to start.

We need to check on our priorities to ensure that they are the right. By neglecting the need to prioritise each other, we are literally throwing the future of the relationship to the dogs. The truth is that sex is not one of the basic needs and no one died from not having it. For her to advance that she is not perfect is not an excuse to continue in her behaviour.

Second, check the expectations. In our desire to build a strong loving relationship, we should try and be realistic about what we desire to see in the relationship.

Third, check our attitude. Your attitude towards each other and the marriage is important. It is said that 90 percent of the attitude we may have towards an issues depends on our default attitude while 10 per
cent is affected by external factors.

This means that we need to build thoughts and ideas in us that are healthy towards each other. Living right with our spouses requires that we don’t use excuses for acting the way we do. Your wife must come to the place of not only accepting her faults but also to taking responsibility.

Do you have a relationship question? Email [email protected]. com